COUNTRY LIFE
ALMOST on the eve of " the Royal " (Agricultural Show) I happened to open a volume of Ruskin, that one-time prophet, in which he argued that it was esselttial, to the well-being of the country that farming opera- tions should rely solely on the labour of men and horses. Machinery, it seems of any sort, must prove the ruin of husbandry. If he was right, there is no hope for England and not much for Britain. The display of machinery (for every conceivable purpose) was hardly less remarkable at Oxford than the stock ; and in no country has.mechanisation proceeded at so rapid a rate. Tractors are universal, and even those mammoths, the harvester-threshers. are now reduced to a bulk that opens their use on the small farm. Since these machines are costly, often too costly for the small farmer, it follows that more and more of the work on the farms is done for the farmer by hired cultivators, who may know little about the craft of husbandry as such. There is no good reason in this for adopting the Ruskin philosophy. Romance may bring up the tractor as well as the 9.15 ; and the farmer has the more time to study the science of his craft. Yet one can appreciate the feelings of the old labourer, who rejoices to see a piece of laid and well-flattened wheat and says with triumph, "They'll want me there" ; and there he will go with his scythe, which nothing defies. Is there any instrument of labour that gives more pleasure and utters a sweeter note ?
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